“But—”
“He will be punished,” Sariel finished. “Most of his followers were killed in the destruction of the city. And as you know, we cannot simply kill him for doing something he claims he didn’t know was illegal.”
“Every immortal knows the rules!” I yelled, raising my voice an octave.
Sariel lifted his large hand as a single black feather fell to the ground creating a hole at his feet. “And for his punishment, he will serve time underground without food, water, or light. A thousand years, should suffice.”
Timbers eyes widened. “You cannot do this to me! Do you know who I am! I am the son of the—”
“Silence!” Sariel screamed, sending Timber into the hole. Then he closed it up with a flick of his wrist and turned. “Don’t you have work to do, Cassius?”
The dungeon walls looked eerily like the ones I’d chained Timber to so long ago.
“You gonna make it?” Ethan asked under his breath. “If this is too difficult—”
“Ethan.” I barked his name. “I mean this exactly how it sounds, shut the hell up before I find a stake and garlic.”
“Hah!” He slapped me on the back. “I love your jokes.”
“I’ll impale you with wood, don’t think I won’t try.”
“It would tickle.”
“It would amuse me greatly, yes.”
Once we reached the bottom of the stairs, the chains came into view, two attached to John’s feet and two more attached to his arms.
“So,” John said without lifting his head. “You’ve brought the immortal king. Finally.”
Swallowing back my fear, I stood to my full height and nodded my head to Ethan. “Drain him.”
John’s head snapped as his hands jerked against the chains, already black putrid blood was crusting around his wrists. “You’ll kill me before knowing the truth?”
“The truth?” I shrugged. “It’s been thousands of years. Why should I care about the truth? You survived, someone made you a Demon, your body took the immortality—” I winced as his skin took on a green hue. “—semi-well, it appears. And you’ve used what I can only assume is more immortal Demon blood mixed with…”
Ethan sniffed the air and shrugged.
“Something else, to create.” I paused and raised one eyebrow. “Am I missing anything?”
“Holy shit, are you truly that dense?” John cackled. “All of you! This has been going on for centuries. Do you truly think….” His eyes turned black. “…this is about you? There is a darkness coming.” His fangs elongated. “A darkness that’s been building… one you will not stop.”
“Drain him,” I ordered Ethan again as my body trembled with the truth of his words.
Eva had always warned me of the same thing.
Thousands of years ago.
Impossible that it was now coming to pass.
“We were the first experiment,” John kept talking. “And look how well it went. Powerful beyond most of the Demon we serve! Able to create on our own.”
Ethan took two steps toward John and pressed his arm against the wall slicing open his wrist with his teeth and moving to the next. John let out a animalistic scream as black blood dripped from the marks Ethan had made.
Vampires had the ability to make the bite burn like hell.
I had a suspicion Ethan hadn’t held back.
John writhed in agony.
“There are more of us. You have no idea how many more.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Hate to break it to you John, but even thousands of Demons against us wouldn’t be a fair fight.”
John laughed, his fangs digging into the bottom of his chin. I frowned and looked closer. Good Lord the immortality had made his fangs double the size. “Who said anything about Demon?”
I held up my hand to Ethan to keep him from taking more of John’s blood. Already my strength was weakening. My head pounded from the exertion.
“What do you mean?”
Suddenly John’s head whipped to the side and a blast of cool air hit me square in the chest as his eyes went completely white.
“Oh, hell.” Ethan took a step back as the chains turned to ice then fell to the floor, John collapsed in a heap then stood as his body grew another six inches. “Impossible!”
My teeth chattered from the cold as I took a cautious step backward. “You aren’t a Dark One.”
“No.” John smiled. “But I can call on his power.”
“I’m the last one.” He didn’t need to know it was a lie.
“No,” John said in a soft voice. “I think not.”
Before he could utter another word, Ethan was on John’s back slicing across his neck decapitating him.
The head landed on the dungeon floor with a thud and a sick splat as the body crumpled next to it. With swift movements, Ethan pulled the feather from his pocket and slid it into the vertebrae. Seconds later, John was nothing but dust.
As a Demon it should be black.
Vampires and Sirens crystallized into small diamond like dust.
But Dark Ones… always went red, a signal of the human blood flowing through their veins.